In a multibeam satellite communications system, each Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) may need to be told, or may otherwise determine, which of several available satellite spot beams the VSAT should use to establish connectivity to the satellite communications system. VSATs may be assigned to their respective spot beams based on their geographic position. For example, if a VSAT's location, when plotted on a map, lies within a particular contour of a spot beam, the VSAT may be assigned to that spot beam. In mobile satellite systems such as the THURAYA system, spot beam selection has been based on a VSAT's measurement of signal strength or signal to noise ratio (SNR) in multiple spot beams, as the VSAT attempts to find the “best” spot beam. The process a VSAT uses to find a spot beam might not be automated, and may be complex.
In addition, the increasing demand for broadband satellite connectivity has made it difficult to provide effective satellite communication to a larger number of users in a given area. That is, the increased demand has resulted in a need for a number of different satellites serving the same or similar geographic region. However, these satellites are usually designed simply based on the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), the antenna gain-to-noise temperature ratio (G/T), and the carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I) of the satellite at any particular geodetic location, without concern for how assigning users to one of a plurality of satellites may affect the overall capacity and loading of the system.